Is Twitter's 'First View' feature really immersing consumers?

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Last Friday Twitter made an announcement and it wasn’t an April Fools joke. The microblogging site announced their decision to roll out what they are calling ‘First View’ to the UK and Europe having trialled the service already in the US.

As discussed in The Drum last week, First View is a new ad offering that allows video promotions from brands to sit at the top of Twitter feeds in a prime position.

First View will work alongside the Promoted Trend tool to allow brands to place their video content in Twitter’s most valuable advertising ‘real estate’ for a 24-hour period.

The first brand to utilise the service in the U.K was Universal studios who used the feature to promote their latest box office release ‘The Huntsman: Winter’s War.’

Twitter has said “The service offers an immersive way to reach Twitter users and allows advertisers to share their story in an engaging and highly visible way through compelling video.”

This new feature has piqued our attention in part because Twitter have described the service as ‘immersive’ and we are true believers in the power of creating immersive connections between brands and consumers (it’s what we do), but we’re not convinced that this feature alone has the power to fully immerse consumers.

Having read the articles relating to the announcement it has led to us to question once again whether brands are being influenced too much by the positioning and placement of an ad and are forgetting that the real way to immerse customers into a brand is by creating quality content.

Twitter First View is a fantastic tool in our opinion. It’s a tool that will put your brand at the top of the feed and therefore its first benefit is heightened brand awareness. It also forces brands to try and create quality video content, which we know can be more immersive than static content.

The new feature alone, however, will not create immersive connections. It gives brands the opportunityto create immersive connections but only through great, engaging content.

Immersive ads should invite the consumer to be part of the brands story and actively encourage participation and collaboration from the consumer. If your content manages to do this then Twitter First View gives brands the opportunity to deliver that content to millions of Twitter users. If it doesn’t however, then all it will become is the top item in a feed, soon forgotten. And a huge engagement opportunity may be lost.

So when you think immersive ensure that the content and media placement are fused together to guarantee the customer the most rewarding experience possible. Then you will really hit the mark.